Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs

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Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs
(Tenino, Wasco, Northern Paiute)
Warm Springs.jpg
Three women photographed on the Warm Springs reservation in 1902.
Regions with significant populations
Flag of the United States (23px).png  United States (Flag of Oregon.svg  Oregon)

The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is a federally recognized Native American tribe made of three tribes who put together a confederation. They live on and govern the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of Oregon.

Contents

Tribes

The confederation consists of three tribes of the Pacific Northwest:

Wasco

Language

The Wasco language, known as Kiksht, has been passed down through generations of Warm Spring Tribe members. There is a concerted effort underway to try to preserve the ancestral language of the Wasco people, through educational programs and language repositories. [1] The United States Governmental policy of assimilation (1790–1920) nearly erased this language. [2] [3] The young tribe members that attended governmental educational facilities were only permitted to speak English, and were forbidden to speak in their native tongue.

The loss of tribal elder Gladys Thompson in 2012 – who was the last fully fluent speaker of Kiksht – has caused the language to become nearly extinct. [4] Language preservation efforts include the Central Oregon Community College 100‑level course in the Kiksht Native Language. [5] The instructor for this course, Ms. Valerie Switzler, was the 2016 recipient of the Linguistic Society of America's Excellence in Community Linguistics Award. [6] The Endangered Languages Archive at SOAS University of London has preserved recordings of conversational Kiksht. [7]

Warm Springs

Bands

These bands are split into different places but are the part of the same tribe. The bands of the Warm Springs tribe consists of Tenino, the Lower Deschutes, also called Wyam, the John-Day or Dock-Spus, and finally the Upper Deschutes or Tygh. [8]

Language

The Warm Springs band spoke a language called Sahaptin. Today there are only about 50 people who speak it fluently and none of them are under fifty years old.[ citation needed ]

Paiute

Paiute history

The Northern Paiutes had dominated South Eastern Oregon, Southern Idaho, Northern and Southern Nevada, and Northern California, with parts of Montana, and Utah.

Language

The Northern Paiutes' language is an Uto-Aztecan language called Numu, which had around 1600 speakers in 1999. [9] It is closely related to the Mono language. [10]

History

Cultural origins

Before becoming the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs the three tribes; Wasco, Warm Springs, and Paiute, lived along the Columbia River and Cascade Mountains. They all spoke different languages and had their own customs. The Warm Springs and Wasco tribes traded and conversed frequently, whereas the Paiute's language was so foreign to the other tribes that it prevented frequent contact.

Arrival of settlers from the U.S.

In 1800, immigrants from the east first started to arrive, by 1852 around 12,000 settlers crossed the tribes' territories each year. The Warm springs and Wasco signed a treaty with Joel Palmer in 1855 after dealing with their traditional ways of life being disrupted by the settlers for many years. By signing the treaty the Wasco and Warm Springs tribes relinquished 10 million acres of land to the United States and kept 640,000 acres for their own use.

The first people from the Paiute tribe to arrive on reservation were the 38 Paiutes that were forced to move onto the Warm Springs Reservation from the Yakama Reservation in 1879. Soon more arrived and they eventually became a permanent part of the Warm Springs Reservation. [11]

Establishment of a confederation at Warm Springs

The Confederated Tribes adopted a constitution in 1938, after the construction of Bonneville Dam flooded the major fishing site at Cascades Rapids. Upon receiving a $4 million settlement in compensation for the 1957 flooding of Celilo Falls by the construction of The Dalles Dam, the Tribes used part of the sum to build the Kah-Nee-Ta resort, which opened in 1964. [12]

Political action

In 2001, members of the Confederated Tribes persuaded the Oregon Legislative Assembly to pass a bill mandating that the word squaw be changed in numerous place names. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yakama</span> Ethnic group

The Yakama are a Native American tribe with nearly 10,851 members, based primarily in eastern Washington state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chinookan peoples</span> Group of Indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest

Chinookan peoples include several groups of Indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest in the United States who speak the Chinookan languages. Since at least 4000 BCE Chinookan peoples have resided along the upper and Middle Columbia River (Wimahl) from the river's gorge downstream (west) to the river's mouth, and along adjacent portions of the coasts, from Tillamook Head of present-day Oregon in the south, north to Willapa Bay in southwest Washington. In 1805 the Lewis and Clark Expedition encountered the Chinook Tribe on the lower Columbia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warm Springs Indian Reservation</span> American reserve in Oregon, US

The Warm Springs Indian Reservation consists of 1,019 square miles (2,640 km2) in north-central Oregon, in the United States, and is governed by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Umatilla people</span> Indigenous people of America

The Umatilla are a Sahaptin-speaking Native American tribe who traditionally inhabited the Columbia Plateau region of the northwestern United States, along the Umatilla and Columbia rivers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation</span> Indian tribes in Oregon, United States

The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation are the federally recognized confederations of three Sahaptin-speaking Native American tribes who traditionally inhabited the Columbia River Plateau region: the Cayuse, Umatilla, and Walla Walla.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Celilo Falls</span> Historical waterfall on the Columbia River in Washington (state), United States

Celilo Falls was a tribal fishing area on the Columbia River, just east of the Cascade Mountains, on what is today the border between the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington. The name refers to a series of cascades and waterfalls on the river, as well as to the native settlements and trading villages that existed there in various configurations for 15,000 years. Celilo was the oldest continuously inhabited community on the North American continent until 1957, when the falls and nearby settlements were submerged by the construction of The Dalles Dam. In 2019, there were calls by tribal leaders to restore the falls.

The Molala are a Native American people of Oregon that originally resided in the Western Cascades. There are few recorded sources about the Molala, the majority being unpublished manuscripts. This assortment includes the works of Albert S. Gatschet, Franz Boas, Leo J. Frachtenberg, Philip Drucker, Melville Jacobs, and Leslie Spier.

Kathlamet was a Chinookan language that was spoken around the border of Washington and Oregon by the Kathlamet people. The most extensive records of the language were made by Franz Boas, and a grammar was documented in the dissertation of Dell Hymes. It became extinct in the 1930s and there is little text left of it.

Sahaptin or Shahaptin, endonym Ichishkin, is one of the two-language Sahaptian branch of the Plateau Penutian family spoken in a section of the northwestern plateau along the Columbia River and its tributaries in southern Washington, northern Oregon, and southwestern Idaho, in the United States; the other language is Nez Perce or Niimi'ipuutímt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern Paiute language</span> Numic language spoken in western US

Northern Paiute, endonym Numu, also known as Paviotso, is a Western Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family, which according to Marianne Mithun had around 500 fluent speakers in 1994. It is closely related to the Mono language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wasco–Wishram</span>

Wasco-Wishram are two closely related Chinook Indian tribes from the Columbia River in Oregon. Today the tribes are part of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs living in the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon and Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation living in the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington.

Upper Chinook, endonym Kiksht, also known as Columbia Chinook, and Wasco-Wishram after its last surviving dialect, is a recently extinct language of the US Pacific Northwest. It had 69 speakers in 1990, of whom 7 were monolingual: five Wasco and two Wishram. In 2001, there were five remaining speakers of Wasco.

Umatilla is a variety of Southern Sahaptin, part of the Sahaptian subfamily of the Plateau Penutian group. It was spoken during late aboriginal times along the Columbia River and is therefore also called Columbia River Sahaptin. It is currently spoken as a first language by a few dozen elders and some adults in the Umatilla Reservation in Oregon. Some sources say that Umatilla is derived from imatilám-hlama: hlama means 'those living at' or 'people of' and there is an ongoing debate about the meaning of imatilám, but it is said to be an island in the Columbia River. B. Rigsby and N. Rude mention the village of ímatalam that was situated at the mouth of the Umatilla River and where the language was spoken.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tenino people</span>

The Tenino people, commonly known today as the Warm Springs bands, are several Sahaptin Native American subtribes which historically occupied territory located in the North-Central portion of the American state of Oregon. The Tenino people included four localized subtribes — the Tygh or "Upper Deschutes" divided in Tayxɫáma, Tiɫxniɫáma and Mliɫáma, the Wyam (Wayámɫáma) (Wayámpam) or "Lower Deschutes", also known as "Celilo Indians", the Dalles Tenino or "Tinainu (Tinaynuɫáma)", also known as "Tenino proper"; and the Dock-Spus (Tukspush) (Takspasɫáma) or "John Day."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Burns Paiute Tribe</span> Indian tribe in Oregon, United States

The Burns Paiute Tribe of the Burns Paiute Indian Colony of Oregon is a federally recognized tribe of Northern Paiute Native Americans in Harney County, Oregon, United States.

Billy Chinook was a chief and member of the Wasco tribe. Chinook was a guide for John C. Frémont and Kit Carson, who explored Central Oregon from 1843 to 1844 and from 1845 to 1847. Chinook also served as First Sergeant, U.S. Army Wasco Scouts during the Snake War. Lake Billy Chinook in Oregon is named in his honor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sherars Falls</span> Waterfall in Wasco County, Oregon

Sherar's Falls, is a small waterfall along the Deschutes River shortly before emptying into the Columbia River. It is a place considered a sacred fishing ground by local native tribes. It is located just north of the city of Maupin on Oregon Route 216 at Sherar's Bridge in Wasco County, in the U.S. state of Oregon. It totals 15 feet fall in a single drop and is the last waterfall along the Deschutes River before the Columbia River. The waterfall is rated as a class 6 whitewater and has an administrative closure to boaters because of the danger. It was named after Joseph Sherar, a 19th-century wagon road builder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Sherar</span> American bridge and hotel owner; road builder

Joseph Sherar was a 19th-century wagon road builder who, with his wife, Jane, owned and operated a Deschutes River toll bridge and a nearby stagecoach station and hotel in Wasco County in the U.S. state of Oregon. The bridge and buildings were slightly downstream of Sherars Falls, the river's lowermost waterfall, and a traditional fishing spot for the native inhabitants of the region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skinpah</span> Indigenous people of America

The Skinpah were a Sahaptin-speaking people of the Tenino dialect living along the northern bank of the Columbia River in what is now south-central Washington. They were first recorded as the E-nee-shers in 1805 by Lewis and Clark. Their village, Sk'in, was located adjacent to Celilo Falls in modern day Klickitat County.

References

  1. "Switzler sees language as key to tribal culture". Portland Tribune . Portland, OR.
  2. Wasco, Paiute, and Warm Spring Indian boys in uniform at government boarding school, Oregon. Burke Library Archives. G.E.E. Lindquist Native American Photographs (photograph). New York, NY: Columbia University. c. 1925. box 58, folder 752, negative 1370.
  3. Hoxie, Frederick (1984). A Final Promise: The campaign to assimilate the Indians, 1880–1920. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.
  4. Clark, Aaron (May 23, 2008). "Tribes strive to save native tongues". The Christian Science Monitor . Boston, MA.
  5. "Kiksht Native Language". Foreign language courses. Bend, OR: Central Oregon Community College. 2017. Archived from the original on January 28, 2021. Retrieved February 27, 2022.
  6. "Oregon tribal director honored with Excellence in Community Linguistics Award" (Press release). Linguistic Society of America. December 8, 2015.
  7. "Conversational Kiksht". Endangered Languages Archive. London, UK: School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS University.
  8. "The Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon". critfc.org. Member tribes overview. Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. Retrieved December 6, 2016.
  9. "Report on Northern Paiute". Ethnologue . Retrieved March 29, 2007.
  10. Babel, Molly; Garrett, Andrew; House, Michael J.; Toosarvandani, Maziar (2013). "Descent and diffusion in language diversification: A study of western Numic dialectology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 79: 445–489.
  11. "History". Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.
  12. "The Oregon Story". Oregon Public Broadcasting. 2001. Archived from the original on March 18, 2008. Retrieved March 19, 2008.
  13. Sanders, Eli (December 11, 2004). "Renaming 'squaw' sites proves touchy in Oregon". The New York Times .